The Complexities Of Football
by DagnyHepburn
Summary: Lily Evans attempts to explain football to her boyfriend James Potter & their friend Sirius Black. They end up playing a game of soccer in the rain/mud, wrestling, having a mud fight. JPLE fluff and Sirius being his usual charming hilarious self. Funny stuff. Friendly bonding with a pinch of romance.


A/N: Hola fic readers! You should really know by now that I do not own these characters :) I love JPLE and I love Sirius just being Sirius so this is the end result. I haven't played soccer in a long time but you gotta love some English football! See you at the bottom :)

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><p>Lily excitedly unwrapped the package she had received this morning on her bed. Gasping in delight, she pulled the white Liverpool F.C. jersey out of the box and squealed.<p>

Hearing Lily's scream, James ran out of his bedroom, across their shared Heads common room and into her room, wand at the ready. He stopped in his tracks when he saw Lily, in perfectly good health, jumping around and spinning in place, clutching a white shirt to her chest with a huge grin on her face.

"Lily, love, are you okay?" James asked concerned, but lowering his wand.

"Oh James! I'm better than okay, I'm bloody fantastic!" Lily told him animatedly.

"Bloody hell Lily. You scared me half to death, screaming like that. I thought some Slytherin death eater wannabe was in here torturing you."

"Merlin no, my parents just sent me the football jersey I wanted."

"What's…football?" The word rolled off his mouth awkwardly.

Lily opened her mouth to respond when the booming voice of Sirius was heard, "Prongsie! Lilyflower! I'm hooome!"

Lily turned to James and told him, "You go downstairs and I'll meet you there in a few."

James nodded and headed down to see his best mate. Sirius was sprawled lazily across the couch, the picture of ease, with his hands folded behind his head.

"You know Padfoot. When I gave you the password to our Heads dormitory, I didn't expect you to come popping in every moment of the day."

"Oh Prongs! How you wound me." Sirius replied, clutching his hands to his chest in mock pain. The effect was ruined by the smile on his face. "Where is my future wife?"

"Woah! I hadn't heard the news! Sirius Black is finally settling down. Congratulations mate." James teased.

"Who's the lucky lady?" Lily's voice interrupted as she came down the stairs wearing her new jersey.

"Tiger Lily! There you are. I was just telling Jamsie here that our love is too great to be contained." Sirius said completely straight faced.

Lily turned to James with a quirked eyebrow and he merely shrugged in response.

"Yes I know that, but don't tell James that I used him to get to you. It will be our little secret." She whispered conspiratorially, but loud enough for James to hear, while sitting on the couch next to Sirius. She winked at James.

Sirius, noticing her attire, asked her, "Not that you don't look great wearing such a tight shirt Lils, but why do have the name of some random guy on your back other than my gorgeous friend's here?" Gesturing to James. "Do we know a…," Sirius looked at the back of her shirt again, "Dalglish?" He asked James.

James shook his head.

"Of course you don't know him! He's a footballer." Lily answered, obviously annoyed.

James and Sirius just stared at her like she had grown a second head.

Lily sighed. _This was going to be interesting_, she thought. "Dalglish is the new star player on the Liverpool Football Club…you know, the club I follow."

No response.

"Football is a muggle sport, Dalglish is a muggle." She continued.

"The hell kind of name is 'football'?" Sirius asked unbelievingly. "Only muggles would think of such a thing." He muttered as an explanation.

"Football is a sport with two teams and you play on a grass pitch with a round ball you kick with your foot, hence the name football." Lily attempted to explain. "You pass the ball with your foot to other players on your team, just like the quaffle in quidditch, and the objective is to try and kick the ball into other team's goal, again like quidditch. There are actually a lot of similarities between football and quidditch. They both have goalies to block the other team from scoring; they both have select players to score the goals-"

Lily was interrupted by Sirius, "So basically you watch muggles stand around and occasionally they kick a ball. Sounds terribly boring." He said unimpressed.

"They do run around and kick the ball at the same time, Sirius. And they slide tackle each other to steal the ball from the other team-"

Lily was once again interrupted by Sirius, "Any flying balls that can potentially kill you?"

"Well, no," Lily answered only to be bombarded by another question from Sirius.

"Are they moving at such high speeds that it takes extraordinary skill to maneuver around and score?"

"No, but-"

"Anyone ever been killed while playing?"

"No!-"

"Well then Lilykins, I rest my case. This muggle football sounds like absolute bollocks. Don't you agree Prongs?"

James had watched the entire conversation as one would a tennis match, with an amused look on his face. When Sirius turned the attention to him, he was about to agree when he saw the livid look of Lily's face.

James cleared his throat, "Perhaps it's something you just have to see to understand, Padfoot." His response earning a smile from Lily.

"That's a brilliant idea Prongsie! Let's play some footieball! Or whatever in Merlin's name it's called." Sirius interjected, jumping to his feet and heading out the door.

"Padfoot, mate, have you looked outside? It's raining like mad." James called after him.

Sirius poked his head back inside the portrait entrance, "Since when has the weather ever stopped Marauder business before? Stop being a nancy-boy and follow me!"

Lily turned to James, "You realize this will end badly don't you?"

James sighed, "It will be much worse if we don't follow him. He knows the password to our dormitory now." He held out his hand for Lily to take, "Let's go put that jersey to good use!"

…..

James, Lily and Sirius strolled down the castle grounds before finding a stretch of grass that Sirius deemed worthy to play on. Lily transfigured a soccer ball and the boundaries of a field. Two sticks were placed in the ground ten feet apart on either side of the field as makeshift goals. Lily thought it would be best to practice passing the ball back and forth first so they formed a loose triangle formation and kicked the ball to one another.

After a few times around, Sirius disclaimed, "Merlin this is easy. If this is all they do, I could be a professional footballer! Do muggle chicks dig footballers, Lilykins?"

Blushing, Lily replied, "Umm, well yes actually, they usually are quite sexy."

James harrumphed and Sirius puffed out his chest a bit, "See! I am practically already a professional footballer." He grinned cheekily.

"Perhaps we should move on to the playing bit, Lils, before Padfoot gets ahead of himself." James interjected.

"Right, well we can start with two against one. James, you and Sirius will be on a team and I will be on another until you get the hang of it. Then we can switch it up." Lily explained.

"You really think you can take two strapping young lads all by yourself, babe?" James teased her, flexing his muscles.

"You may want to take some notes, cause you're about to be schooled," Lily retorted cockily.

Much to James and Sirius's dismay, Lily was right. James had never seen Lily's feet move so quickly, she looked like she was dancing with all of her fancy footwork. She easily faked and maneuvered around both of them to score over and over again. She had seriously underrated her football abilities to them when she was explaining the rules of the game.

But even though James was getting his but thoroughly kicked, he couldn't help but watch how Lily moved with agility, confidence and precision. _Yes, footballers are quite sexy indeed_, James thought, agreeing with Lily's previous statement.

Not appreciating Lily's stealth football skills, Sirius became fed up with the "silly muggle rules" and snatched the ball up from Lily's feet. He proceeded to run to the opposite goal post, and once past the goal posts, threw the ball down on the ground and threw his hands in the air doing a winning dance. Repeatedly yelling, "Victory!"

Shaking his head at Sirius's antics, James jogged over to retrieve the ball back from Sirius. Sirius, refusing to give the ball back, began to run around the field shouting, "You'll never take me alive!"

James eventually managed to tackle Sirius to the ground and passed the ball back to Lily. They proceeded to pass the ball five times before Sirius seized the ball once more and took off with it. Giving up on playing football, James and Lily chased Sirius all over the grass and mud, cackling like mad. After a few laps around the field, James caught up to Sirius and threw him down to the ground, wrestling.

Five minutes later, the two boys were still wrestling and Lily, getting rather bored, picked up a handful of mud and threw it right into James's face. He froze, his astonished eyes blinking.

"Did you just throw mud on my face?" James asked unbelieving.

Lily giggled, "Yes."

"You really shouldn't have done that." He whispered menacingly and picked up a large handful of mud and dumped it on her head.

"MUD FIGHT!" Sirius declared, running to collect mud and forming battle strategies best for the rain.

An hour or so later, the loud grumble of Lily's stomach alerted them to how long they had been outside. Sirius, looking at his water speckled watch, announced it was time for dinner. The three Gryffindors trudged up the grounds to the Great Hall thoroughly exhausted but in high spirits.

Focusing on their empty stomachs, they had completely forgotten about the muddied state of their clothing until they were face to face with Professor McGonagall.

"Mr. Black, just what do you think you are doing?"

"My dear Professor, you are looking quite lovely this evening." Sirius said smiling, turning on the Black charm.

"Flattery, while most useful in some cases, will not excuse you from dragging mud all over the castle, Mr. Black." She said sternly.

Lily spoke up, "It's my fault Professor. I was telling James and Sirius about football and we tried to play it, but the rain and mud got in the way. We were just about to shower off when we realized how hungry we were and decided to eat something first."

Professor McGonagall took in the shivering and dirty forms of the three Gryffindors and saw Lily's muddied jersey. "Liverpool, Miss Evans? I was always a Celtic fan myself. Five points to each of you for trying something new. Now I suggest you retire as quickly as possible to your dormitories to shower all that mud off before Filch or another Professor finds you. I can assure you they will not be as forgiving."

And after having said that, Professor McGonagall turned on her heel and strode away down the corridor, leaving three very confused but relieved Gryffindors behind.

"The bloody hell was that?" Sirius asked aghast.

"I told you football was a popular sport!" Lily told him smugly.

James smiled and put his arm around Lily, "C'mon, let's go before Filch catches us. We can take the passageway behind Gregory the Smarmy."

_Oh the complexities of football_, he thought as they walked back to their rooms.

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><p>EN: F.C. stands for football club in case you were wondering! I actually looked up all of the teams and their timelines to make this as historically accurate as possible. If you would like to make my day, please review or add this story to your favorites! Thanks guys!


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